Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-11-20
VICE AND CRIME.
A story of Vice i'm Michigan and
wisconsin.

vvlSCunStus
IsHpEMING, Mich, November A.
The authoritative announcement
comes from Madison, the capital OF
Wisconsin, that Governor Rusk has
decided to break up the infamous
traffic in girls and women, which has
so long been a spot on the boosted
civilization of the State.
The upper peninsula of Michigan,
and the numbering district Of northern
Wisconsin, We're filled a few years
ago with the vilest imaginable
dens, situated usually from one
to three miles from some prosperous
little town. The infamous doings oil
these places would almost surpass be-
lief. Every crime known to man, in
Guiding murder, has often been com.
mitted behind their stout pine walls.
Many of these vile places were sur.
sounded by stout stockades of pine
logs eight feet high, With a gate Sc
sured by massive paddock. This was
to prevent the escape of the unfor-
tunate inmates, many of whom would
otherwise have left the places.
By system of charges and fines the
women in these places were kept in
perpetual debt to the owners and were
forcibly detained. In addition to the
high stockade a number of these
establishments were pro vided with
bloodhounds, and if an unfortunate
woman ever succeeded in scaling the
walls or getting through the gate her
absence was generally discovered and
the hounds placed on her track. Such
life was worse than slavery.
Gradually there came better morals
to the new mining and numbering
towns, and the houses of prostitution
we're forced to mend their ways
slightly or seek new location. The
dives near the large villages mended
their ways, but those remote from the
cities and towns continued as before.
This state of affairs held until two
years ago, when Judge Claudius b.
Grant, a man Of great determination,
set to work to drive the dives
out of the upper pehinsular of Michi-
gan. The peninsula covers over 49,
600 square miles and has nearly l00,-
600 peolle, so the judges task was in
deed herculean one, but he has at
last succeeded in his work. County
by county the peninsula was morally
purified until the last dive was driven
off of Michigan soil. The judge was
often compelled to threaten the county
officers before he could make them
fulfill their duty.
AS the dives were driven from
Michigan they were naturally
crowded over the border into Wiscon-
sin. About this time the Gogebic Iron
Range sprang into sudden prom
inence, and the tough characters,
male and female, focked to that part
of the country, and Hurley, the lead
ing town of the Change" became,
within a twelvemonth, the wickedest
city in the West. The vicious system
of stockade-guarded houses of vice
was transplAnted to the Gogebic,
and as there was scarcelya semblance
of legal government at first.
this state of affairs was accepted as
natural. Marinette, an important
numbering and milling town Of $4,000
people, on the south shore of the Me-
nomonee river, which separates the
upper peninsula of Michigan from
Wisconsin, has long been noted for q
vile place known as Diamonds Ranch,
two miles from the city. From fifty
to a hundred women were kept here
constantly, and the place was one OF
the worst in the entire district. This
was run without molestation for
many years, and being conveniently
close to the Michigan boundary line
became the rendezvous for the rascale
out two States, and their asylum when
pursued by officers of the law. The
people of Marinette have always been
strangely apathetic about this place,
probably accepting it as an evil that
always had existed-therefore must
be endurable. but it is now in a fair
way to be closed. The dens of vice
had a system OF recruiting women fol-
their traffic which has never been ex-
ceeded in iniquity. Respectable girls
and women were secured by agents in
Milwaukee and Chicago, being prom
ised work on their arrival in board
lighthouses or hotels. Once inside the
stockade, they could not escape
| What scenes of anguish have
been enacted within the walls OF the
infamous dens of the Northwest viii
never be known. Beath-bed scenes
in hospitals, and the occasional sto
ries of escaped prisoners from these
places, give an outline of what these
places have been and what some o
them still are. The press OF the coun
TRY has occasionally printed sadl!